Mike Toth taught us all that he knows more than any woman employed as a sports broadcaster, and well look where that landed him. So, pardon the expression in the title. No offense intended.

So, if your at all like me, you listen to your fair share of sports radio, you read the dailies and if you are reading this then I can assume you are reading the blogs too. Additionally, you pile on a few hours of television nightly, a game here or there a highlight/news show etc. You are, as they say, tuned in.

As I have written here lately, the problem with the current status of the Toronto Maple Leafs is that no man’s land isn’t a great place to be if you are covering the team or looking for a story/topic to report on. Take today for example, the big news of the day was that Ron Wilson was unhappy with the stupid penalties the Leafs took against Tampa Bay. No shit Dick Tracy. Jolly Jonas had it in an article of his, on the air and his twitter, Happy Howie Berger had it on the Fan, hell next to charity events for Haiti it was the new of the day.

My question for you is this. In the absence of anything meaningful to discuss, what do you want your scribes to cover? Should they be covering other teams? other leagues, other sports or taking on different angles. If we are willing to accept that the Maple Leafs aren’t newsworthy by virtue of them not being the least bit of interest, what should those who cover them talk about?

For me, I have lots of questions. First and foremost, and this isn’t a knock on the guy, but I am curious what a GM does in the NHL from training camp till the trade deadline. I mean o NHL GM’s have a message board like hfboards.com where they post rumours etc? What have there been so far this year, 4 trades, of which, what, 1 was of any significance? How many times can you call fellow GM’s and say, you trading anyone? Everytime there is a rumor at all the first thing a GM says is “I haven’t even talked to that team in a over a month”. There are only 30 teams in the damn league, if you aren’t talking to each 1 at least 1x a month, then what the hell are you doing?

Second question is for the coaching staff, how do you prepare your team for a meaningless battle? The whole world knows the season is meaningless, each game is becoming more irrelevant with the passing of every day, so how do you keep guy motivated. What the hell are you doing in practices at this stage of the season? Is it preparing for next season already?

Personally, I would like to see some technical information that we don’t usually get to see. What is a GM watching for when they are in press box, what is a coach thinking as his team takes another too many men on the ice penalty…you know the inside stuff that we don’t get ot hear or read about. I think the MSM should be trying to find the nuisances that we don’t get anywhere else. There are no more scoops. There are no traders, so there are no more rumors. Why not get us some real stories that are actually interesting.

What, do you want to read/listen about?

TSM

@yyzsportsmedia

A couple of quick points, first, to the fine folks at CityTv who lost their jobs today, best of luck, may you find work quickly! Especially Anne Mroczkowski, the 23 year vet. How she loses her job while the town bike keeps her job is beyond me.

This issue with violence in junior hockey- if you want to end it, start with parents and coaches of the littlest kids who play the game. You know the ones, they sign of their kids up for skating and hockey 5 days a week or more at the age of 5. If players at 17 have no respect for their opponents, start with where they learned the game. We as a society are totally nuts when it comes to teaching our kids hockey. Practices, skates, games, hockey hockey hockey. The pressure, the expectations is nuts.

I help coach my son’s team. He plays house league. HOUSE League. You know 1 day a week. The odd practice here or there. Our team is pretty relaxed, but you should hear and see the other kids/parents/coaches. You would think this was the NHL. the yelling, the screaming the PUSHING. These kids are 7!

If you think the hits you have seen in junior have been bad lately, seriously, go to your local rink and take in a pee-wee game. The cement head, John Brophy wanna be’s coaching these teams…..that is where it starts. Parents screaming from the stands at Pee-Wees! It’s nuts. In one of our games the other teams coach literally almost leaped off the bench when the referee (who may have been 11) missed an offside- I thought the coach was going to kill the poor kid!

To me it’s really quite simple.Throw the book at these kids who play like idiots. Every time someone does something like this, throw the damn book at him. Hockey is a privilege not a right. Make that the example. Teach kids to play hard but to play clean. Parents, the odds of your kids making to the show are slim and none, just like they were when you played. I heard a parent ask an opposing coach in my son’s league if they could work on their power play a couple of days ago- We don’t even have penalties in our league!

Now, that that is over…..

Curious, if you have been listening to the radio in this town lately. I know, I was away for a the holidays then I had the knee surgery, but wow- what happened???? Where has the quality gone? It’s really nasty out there.

Now, I will grant you the fact that there is nothing to talk about with respect to the Maple Leafs. They are out of the hunt this year. They have no draft picks this year. They claim to be unwilling to trade their only tradeable asset. What is there to talk about?

Still, man is it weak out there.

In listening to the morning show on the Fan the last couple of days, there wasn’t one segment that I thought was the least bit interesting let alone thought provoking. Do the boys have the post holiday blues? Are they mailing it in until their contracts are up???? WOW

The Bullpen is what it is. It doesn’t really change all that much. I will say this in Mike Hogan’s defence, no one can do what he is doing solo. It’s just not good radio. Toth isn’t the answer, but give him someone, he needs a foil of some sort.

The two lunch time shows are also both so tired. I like Darren Dreger. If he says a team is interested in a player, or something is happening in a room, I believe it. He is not a host. Having him on with Wilbur just isn’t good radio. He doesn’t play well to Wilbur, and he isn’t a good interviewer. More importantly, he really doesn’t share an opinion. Down the dial, it’s the same shtick every single day. The names change, but the ripping on Kipper for this, talking about someone’s basement hockey jersey’s and MacLean interrupting to talk about how much money he has…..

I am warming up a little bit to the gameplan. It’s a little bit forced and only because they can’t talk NBA/Raptor basketball all day. If this was a market and they could talk hoops for the entire show it would be good. In another market it would be good. You do your hockey show, your NBA show. These guys would be fine.

The shows that I think are suffering the most are the drive homes. Here’s a bombshell for you- I miss Mccown taking calls. I do. I thought it humanized him a bit. His screeners did a good job of blocking out most of the crap for him and to be honest he didn’t kiss anybodies butt and it was good to hear his opinion.

Today was painful. I know Jim Kelley is unwell, and I wish him the best of health. McCown talked to him today for over 30 minutes. Kelley just isn’t that interesting to talk to for that long. It was, in a word, awful. AWFUL. It wasn’t interesting, it wasn’t compelling and it wasn’t funny. It was more like let me talk to my buddy down the road to kill time cause I don’t want to speak to the fans.

To top it off- Brunt is away again this week and we are graced with John Shannon. Now, clearly the guys at Rogers (probably the same ones who fired Anne Mroczkowski and not the bike) messed up the memo. Shannon, I would think would make a fine replacement for Nelson Millman, NOT Jim Kelley! Have you seen the Sportsnet promo on Shannon? Touting him as an INSIDER- it’s INSULTING. Shannon is a television executive. He is a damn good one at that. He is not a sports radio co-host. Again, he’s not funny, he’s not interesting and he’s not informative. Unless the topic relates to, sports broadcasting, television rights or camera angles.

Up the dial, with the Leafs in their predicament, Wilbur has no ammo. Is it just me or is Bill Watters the real life Cosmo Kramer? He talks about all these guys with funny names or nicknames. Today for example, he is talking about a former colleague who passed away. I thought, here is Wilbur going to show that he is human. Instead he rambled on about some other guy Cheech ( I was praying he was going to then refer to Chong- at least that would have been funny). Bill Watters isn’t every guy. The every guy can’t relate to him. Yet he rambles on as if we do.

To finish it off you have the after hours on the Fan. Does anything make you hit the flip button faster than Lajoie, Faulds or Eric Thomas? Seriously, the fan finally has some younger guys that should be all over the air during these hours- hell do round-tables. On espn radio on Sundays they would have a bunch of guys talking about the games going on. Do that. Anything would be better than what I have been listening to lately- the Fan has gotten stale my friends.

Well, there’s my rant for the day- We sports fans in Toronto are getting screwed with our sports radio. We deserve better.

I feel better.

TSM

@yyzsportsmedia

So I have to admit, I haven’t heard the Tother since he has been on Newstalk 1010 (the old CFRB). I will try to take a listen tomorrow on the way in to the office (now that I can drive again). In the meantime, I am not sure if this is supposed to be funny or if it’s just plain stupid as it appears- you be the judge:

Happy, healthy and prosperious 2010 to all who our kind enough to visit this website.

I shall be driving the family home from Florida starting tomorrow. Should be a blast.

Sources are telling me this eve, that Mike Toth is on the verge of joining (if he hasn’t already) cfrb as the morning sports gut replacing Rick hodge. Toth recently of Sportsnet and the fan 590 is a guy whom ya either loved or loathed and apparently those lovers can find him on 1010am in the am.

Tsm

Happy Turkey Day..

The Star is the contributor of the Maple Leaf Turkey article of the day, the author Rosie DiManno who clearly is the woman in sports that Mike Toth spoke of months before leaving the Fan and Sportsnet. (Toth by the way is officially gone from the Fan on a permanent basis). DiManno’s column is, in a word brutal. I have no problem with being critical of the Leafs, but at least make sense. They have offered up lots of ammunition to pick on them and she comes up with utter crap.

“Heretofore the difference between crap and craps: The first is played on ice, too many nights, by the Maple Leafs. The second is played with dice.”

Rosie then goes on, and on on the laws of probability. So if you want to bet on the coin flips or dice rolling, read on….

“A rolled dice always has a 1-chance-in-6 of flashing six pips, no matter how often it is thrown. A die doesn’t change it’s, um, spots.

Leaf shooters have been unable to change their luck either, regardless of how many shots they take in a game – like that club-record tying 61 in Monday’s 4-3 overtime loss to the Islanders.

Now, clearly there are permutations, hockey-wise, because scoring opportunities have numerous variables. This is what makes it a game of skill and calculation rather than chance and finite odds. But the Leafs have been making a whole lot of journeymen goalies look like Dominik Hasek by shooting blanks or taking low-profit swipes at the puck on the theory that, eventually, some of them have to go in. Ain’t happening.”

No you see, here is where she goes offline. The problem with her theory is that despite odds, in sports there are these things called streaks. This is true in every sport. There are times where even the best of players go into slumps and there are times when the worst of players still tickle the twine, cause, well shit happens. Ask a goalie or a baseball batter about the times when the puck or ball looks either like a pea or a beach-ball. Is it mathematically explainable? Not really. It just happens. Does that mean Jason Blake is going to score 50 this year? No. Does it mean they will shoot at the same percentage all year- hell no! Does the baseball player who goes 5-5 on opening day with 2 homers mean he isn’t going to miss all year and score 2 every game?

“The Leafs, arguably, have just one pure goal scorer in Phil Kessel, who has been exactly as advertised. This was the dilemma in the Mats Sundin era, when so much of the offensive burden was borne by a single player, rarely with proficient play-making linemates.”

No shit dick tracey- this is news?

“”Snipers have a weird sense of where to go on the ice and they always find a way to score,” said Sundin, when we caught up with him on Wednesday, enjoying retirement in Stockholm.

“It’s a combination of natural skill and hard work. The best pure goal-scorer I ever saw was Alex Mogilny. Now, he was gifted, but he also worked hard on his shooting every day.”

Sundin cleaves to the keep-shooting mantra.

“At least you’re giving yourself a chance to score.”

Ok, so you talked to Mats….What is the point of this article???? What does anything that you have written have to do with flipping coins and rolling dice? The Leafs are putting forth an effort, and are at least playing a more competitive brand of hockey. Are they winning? No. Does it matter in the grand scheme of things that they are trying hard- not really. Effort only goes so far. The reality is this team is devoid of scoring talent. I don’t care how hard Mogilny worked- he had a gift; he was extremely talented. Wade Belak looked like he worked pretty hard too- he didn’t score like Mogilny did. Next time Rosie – have a point.

By the way, many people have asked the question, TSM reached Brian Burke this evening and was told that the Maple Leafs self imposed holiday transaction freeze kicks in on December 9th.

TSM @yyzsportsmedia

Rosie is here

Leafs lost in OT- another decent effort and now we are counting moral victories. Toskaka tomorrow? Can’t be good.

Raptors lost after being up late. Showing signs tonight of last year. Right now we can say it’s early.

Blue jays announced Cito will be managing again, and that can’t be good for recruitment purposes.

The Fan apparently has decided to retain it’s weakest link Goober Mike Toth, the guy who adds no value at all when he is on air.

All in all a bad day

Here’s to tomorrow

William Houston had it first on his blog so give credit to the maven. Word is on the street, and multiple sources are telling TSM at this hour that Mike Toth has been advised that his services are no longer needed by the folks at Sportsnet. Toth wasn’t on the Fan 590’s Bullpen with Mike Hogan this am. Sources are telling TSM that Toth is gone from Sportsnet and what that means exactly for his duties for the Fan 590 has yet to be decided.

Let’s be clear, I am not a Mike Toth fan. I don’t think he is very good at what he does. That’s just one guy’s opinion, no more valuable than the other. Having said that, I feel for Mr. Toth today. He clearly enjoys what he does and is passionate about it. More importantly, time are tough out there and he does have a family. So in the pre-holiday spirit I offer Toth the best of luck in securing another job- perhaps in another market

More as we hear more.

@yyzsportsmedia

So the numbers are in for the first month of the fall ratings on the radio. This is the new People Meter System which should deliver a more accurate account on who is listening to what.

Here are the highlights as I know them:

Men aged 25-54..Total Share Of Audience

John Oakley — 7.7
590 Morning Show – 6.3
CFRB – 5.7

Cumulative Audience

Fan 590: 158,000
640 Toronto: 111,000

So fair is fair and fair is unfair- there is only one sports show in town and the closest comparison is Oakley…

Mike Stafford — 7.4
The Bullpen — 2.9

Same story here as the Bullpen is the only sports show in town. I suspect this isn’t that surprising to the folks at the fan. It’s not the best time of day, the show appeals to a very small but dedicated group of people. No one else talks ARGO football/ CFL and then, well there is Toth….

Leafs Lunch — 6.3 – older demo (35-49) 4.0
Hockey Central/baseball show (only 12-1pm) — 4.3 older demo (35-49) 5.4

leafs lunch — 18-34 4.6
HC/BC ——-18-34 2.6

weekly cumulative: 25-54 fan 590 152,000 640 101,000
daily cumulative 18-34 fan 54,000 640 30,000

640 has fewer people listening longer which leads to larger share of the audience

I seem to recall this being reversed. To be fair, again, HC didn’t have a full month. The baseball show in a baseball dead town took on half the month. This is a good sign for Dreger though. I am most interested to see this number in the coming books.

Prime Time Sports 9.0
The Bill Watters Show 4.6

PTS cumulative 207,000-weekly 75,000 daily
BWS Cumulative 138,000 weekly 39,000 daily

Mccown has a big lead. BWS makes in roads in this space there is no question. However, Mccown is Mccown.

Interestingly enough, the Watters show surpassed Mccown with the younger demographic, 18-34 men: BWS 4.8, Mccown 3.9

In the older demographic men aged 35-54: Mccown 10.2, BWS 4.4

I don’t think that is totally surprising either.

TSM spoke with Nelson Millman, the boss over at the fan about the latest “book”

“It is fine, not hugely different than what we have seen. Our cumulative are up, honestly it will take 6 months for this all to shake out and we can identify some trends. No programming decisions will be based on personal people meters. No one should rip their rotator cuff off padding themselves on the back from one month under the new system.”

Over at 640, Program Director Gord Harris offered this “Leafs Lunch has been a market-leading program for some time, and we are thrilled that TSN’s Darren Dreger, as the program host, has extended our lead over other news/talk and sports/talk competitors in both the Male 25-54 and Male 18-34 demographics. In fact, AM640 is the number one AM radio station in the Toronto market in those demos during Leafs Lunch. We are confident that, as the exclusive radio partner with the Toronto Maple Leafs, the only radio reporter who travels with the team to every game, and our unprecedented line up of hockey “insiders” (including TSN’s Darren Dreger, Bob McKenzie, Ray Ferraro, Pierre McGuire, and CBC’s Scott Morrison),

We are also very happy with the strong growth we have seen for The Bill Watters Show, going from approximately 10% of our competitor’s share of listening in Male 25-54 demographic before we launched the show, to over 50%. That in just two years since the launch. Even more gratifying is the tremendous growth we have enjoyed in the younger male demographic (18-34) where we lead both our news/talk and sports/talk competitors. As the host of The Bill Watters Show, Greg Brady brings not only a wealth of sports knowledge and experience to listeners, but a youthful enthusiasm and humour – because sports is, after all – fun!”

Interesting times at both stations for sure. Let’s see how this looks next month.

TSM

@yyzsportsmedia

The Fan 590 is reporting that Wayne Gretzky has stepped down from his position of head coach with the Phoenix Coyotes. Mike Toth and Mike Hogan relayed the story on The Bullpen a few minutes ago.

TSN has also reported that Gretzky is done in Phoenix, where he has been absent from the start of training camp.

More to follow, with TSM’s take.

-DL

This is classic. The new Panthers owners must be proud…The guy was on tv when he started to hit on Ainsley Earhardt, the Fox News anchor who was interviewing Uri Man ice-president of real-estate development for the Panthers. Can’t wait to hear what Mike Toth has to say about this one!

Enjoy: